Re: Streams support in Linux

Shahbaz Youssefi
2018-09-20T07:47:05Z

> Let's go over the properties of a file stream:
>
> - It has no life independent of the file it's attached to; you can't move
> it from one file to another
> - If the file is deleted, it is also deleted
> - If the file is renamed, it travels with the file
> - If the file is copied, the copying program decides whether any named
> streams are copied along with it.
> - Can be created, deleted. Can be renamed?
> - Openable, seekable, cachable
> - Does not have sub-streams of its own
> - Directories may also have streams which are distinct from the files
> in the directory
> - Can pipes / sockets / device nodes / symlinks / ... have streams? Unclear.
> Probably not useful.

This certainly sounds useful! And it's called tar.

With fs-verity as well, I don't see why they have to put the tree and
the data in the same file, when they can just bundle them in a
tarball.